Abstract:Plant growth and soil microbial ecological process are severely constrained by the availability of soil nitrogen and phosphorus in alpine ecosystems. Global climatic warming can significantly alter the growth of plant communities, as well as the structure and activity of soil microbial communities in the alpine ecosystems of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau. This, in turn, can have profound effects on soil nutrient mineralization and cycling processes, ultimately affecting the availability of soil nitrogen and phosphorus nutrients. However, up to this date, we still know little about how climate warming affect soil nitrogen and phosphorus nutrient availability in the alpine shrublands on the eastern Qinghai-Xizang Plateau. Therefore, to reveal the effects of warming on soil nutrient availability in the alpine shrublands, the dynamics of soil dissolved organic carbon (DOC), inorganic nitrogen (DIN) and available phosphorus (AvP) contents and their stoichiometric ratios and their responses to warming during the different growing seasons in a typical alpine shrubland dominated by Sibiraea angustata on the eastern Qinghai-Xizang Plateau were examined. The main influencing factors regulating soil nutrient availability under warming were also investigated. The results showed that the soil available nutrient contents showed obvious seasonal dynamics. Soil DOC content showed a trend to decrease first and then increase, reaching the lowest values in the middle of the growing season. While soil DIN, ammonium nitrogen and nitrate nitrogen contents, and soil AvP content showed constant increasing trends, all reaching the highest values at the end of the growing season. Warming did not significantly affect air temperature throughout the growing season. Warming significantly increased soil temperature by 1.3℃, but decreased soil moisture by 2.2% during the growing season. Warming significantly increased soil DOC and AvP contents by 3.5%-9.9% and 4.8%-33.7% throughout the growing season, respectively, as well as significantly increased soil DIN content by 17.5% in the middle growing season. However, warming significantly decreased the soil DIN content by 12.8% in the late growing season, which mainly resulted from the decrease in soil nitrate nitrogen content. Moreover, warming did not significantly affect soil ammonium nitrogen content throughout the growing season. Simultaneously, warming significantly increased the ratio of soil DOC:DIN by 37.3% in the late growing season, but significantly decreased the ratio of soil DOC:AvP by 17.9% in the middle growing season, as well as significantly decreased the ratios of soil DIN:AvP by 12.2%-25.7% in the middle and late growing season. The results of Redundancy analysis and Pearson correlation analysis suggested that soil temperature, soil moisture, soil microbial biomass carbon content, and urease activity were the main factors affecting soil nutrient availability in the alpine shrubland, all of which could explain most variations in the soil available nutrient contents. These results indicated that future global warming could promote soil nutrient mineralization process by increasing soil temperature, then accelerating the transformation and cycling rates of soil available nutrients, and thus significantly influencing soil available nutrient contents in these alpine shrublands of eastern Qinghai-Xizang Plateau. These results can provide some basic data for a deep understanding of the soil nutrient transformation and cycling process in these alpine shrublands under the climate warming scenario, and also provide scientific references for the sustainable management of these alpine shrub ecosystems on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau.